Switzerland: 10 million inhabitants from 2040?

ThoseDemographic evolution –Switzerland could reach 10 million inhabitants from 2040

The CAP feared by the UDC could be crossed before 2050. Analysis of the scenarios of the Federal Statistics Office with Demographer Philippe Wanner.

Posted today at 5:22 p.m.

How much will we be in 2055? L’Federal Statistics Office (OFS) published its scenarios on the evolution of the population on Tuesday in the next thirty years. Here are the main trends in his reference scenario, with the comments of Philippe Wanner, professor of demography at the University of Geneva.

Increase thanks to migration

The first conclusion could bring water to the UDC mill and its initiative “for sustainability”which requests that the resident population does not exceed 10 million people before 2050. According to the reference scenario of the OFS, this threshold will be well exceeded.

The 10 million inhabitants mark should be crossed in 2040. And Switzerland has 10.5 million residents in 2055, against 9.1 million today – an increase of 15% over the entire period. However, an attenuation of this development is expected – with an increase of approximately 7% from 2025 to 2035, from 4% from 2035 to 2045 then from 3% until 2055.

The growth will be mainly due to migration, and its magnitude will depend more and more on the economic situation. “We are going to go into a new diet,” confirms Philippe Wanner. We will no longer be able to maintain our population thanks to births, and we will depend more abroad. ”

For a demographer, this rocking has a consequence: “Migration is the most volatile factor in projections. Mortality or fertility are easier to estimate. ” This development also leads to political issues, as illustrated by the UDC initiative. “The question is what Swiss we want for the future,” sums up Phillippe Wanner. Migration is a factor of rejuvenation and if we do not use it, the population will age even more. ”

More deaths than births from 2035

We can expect that the number of deaths exceeds that of births (negative natural increase) from 2035. Philippe Wanner specifies that fertility Particularly decreased in the past two years. “There are now 1.28 children per woman and since 2021, the number of births has dropped by almost 15%,” he explains. This trend is also observed abroad. We do not know at what level she will stabilize, but we don’t think she will be reversed. ”

Baby-boomers in the third age

The hair will whiten! On the one hand, more and more people will reach retirement age or exceed it. On the other, we expect life expectancy to increase. About a quarter of the population will be 65 years or over in 30 years. This proportion is around 20%today.

Still according to the reference scenario, we are witnessing a rapid increase of 65 years and over until around 2040, with maximum annual growth in 2029 (+2.6%). This trend should then stabilize at 0.8% per year. One in the other, retirees will increase by around 50% between 2024 and 2055 (from 1.8 million to 2.7 million). And the number of seniors aged 80 or over will double (from 0.54 to 1.03 million).

At the same time, the active population is expected to increase by 12.5%. Not enough to counter aging. The hypothesis is that there will be 51 retirees for 100 active people aged 20 to 64 in 2055, against 38 today. “Baby-boomers’ retirement will create an air call, which should promote migration,” comments Philippe Wanner. Which sends us back to the first point.

Growth of large agglomerations

The population will continue to concentrate around the Zurich agglomeration and in the Lake Geneva. In the reference scenario, the populations of the cantons of Lucerne, Saint-Gall, Vaud, GenevaThurgovia and Argovie increase by more than 20% in the next three decades. In French -speaking Switzerland, that of Valais is also greater than the national average.

For all cantons, this increase is 15%. At the bottom of the ladder, the cantons of Jura, Neuchâtel, Schaffhe and Appenzell Rhodes-Exterior experience the lowest growth (less than 2% until 2055).

Philippe Wanner, however, calls for caution in the face of these regional scenarios. “In recent years, agglomerations have grown up fairly quickly, and demographers start from the idea that this development will continue. But territorial aspects could brake it. ”

He gives an example: can the Geneva agglomeration really welcome the population announced in the next thirty years? “We can also imagine that, for lack of space, these people are established in more peripheral areas,” notes the professor.

Other scenarios

The data presented so far is those of the reference scenario. Two other basic scenarios are calculated. In the first, we imagine a higher migration, a slight increase in fertility, and a faster increase in life expectancy. Result: we will be 11.7 million in 2055.

In the opposite scenario (lower migration, fertility in slight decrease, almost no increase in life expectancy), we will be 9.3 million in 2055. The population will then be at its maximum in 2042, before starting to drop. And the fears of the UDC would not be carried out.

The OFS stresses that the advanced scenarios are not forecasts, and that they describe “plausible developments of the permanent resident population of Switzerland and the cantons during the next decades”. The conditional therefore remains in order.

Philippe Wanner acknowledges that, in long -term calculations, the margin of error is “relatively important”. “But these data are an element to take into account in reflection on our needs in twenty or thirty years, and therefore to plan the long -term infrastructure,” said the Genevan. Before concluding that, whatever the scenario chosen, the trends are “quite heavy”. And that “it will be difficult to influence them”.

Caroline Zuercher has been a journalist at the Swiss section since 2005. She has in particular covered subjects related to health and health policy. Previously, she worked for Swissinfo and in the morning.More info

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